


we're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl

by abbeghoul



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: (sorta. bertie still dies bc fuck him), 5 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fix-It, Found Family, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-23 18:08:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21085598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbeghoul/pseuds/abbeghoul
Summary: 5 times Zolf and Sasha missed each other (and, well, you know the rest)





	we're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohallows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohallows/gifts).

> happy birthday bri!!
> 
> way to make us all feel guilty by writing a fic that's 18k for YOUR BIRTHDAY but whatever i still love you and i hope you enjoy it
> 
> title from [Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPL_SV3n7IU)

_How I wish, how I wish you were here_   
_We're just two lost souls_   
_Swimming in a fish bowl_   
_Year after year_   
_Running over the same old ground_   
_And how we found_   
_The same old fears_   
_Wish you were here_

  


* * *

_One- Sasha._

Sasha missed Zolf already. She knew he hadn’t been gone even a day, but the aloofness of the healer at the temple of Artemis made her wish he was with her. Besides, she hated talking about herself or explaining her past, and Zolf had been there through it all. Through her death.

It was still weird to think about.

As the cleric of Artemis touched her back, her hands were cool to the touch, and pristine. Efficient. Sasha missed how much Zolf was the exact opposite. He was always warm and his hands were calloused by years of handling the rigging on ships.

A healer was a healer, though, and at least she knew enough to tell Sasha about her “botched resurrection,” even if her advice was “go talk to a cleric of Aphrodite.” Sasha didn’t want to talk to anyone else, really, but she did want to stop waking up covered in blood. She wondered what the next healer would be like. _Do all healers spit on their hands before touching their patients? _Sasha didn’t have much experience with clerics, but that didn’t seem sanitary. Of the healers she’d known in her life (the count was now two), both of them had done so. Maybe it helped the magic flow better. She wasn’t one to judge either way.

She wouldn’t ask the cleric of Artemis, but she could have asked Zolf- could have joked with him about it, teased Hamid and Bertie by threatening to spit on them for healing.

But he was gone, and Sasha understood. He was her first real friend, and she missed him, but what she had said to him when he left was still true. It was his choice, and she wouldn’t go against that.

_Two- Sasha. _

Sasha _really_ missed Zolf. She knew he would probably make the argument worse, but- well, it was always fun seeing Zolf argue with people.

As she stood in the corner watching Grizzop and Azu debate with Hamid, she thought about how Zolf would definitely have had an opinion. He would have understood that’s how it works for the rich and not the poor, in a way Hamid never could, and yet he would also appreciate how much Hamid’s family meant to him, in a way Grizzop and Azu couldn’t yet.

Sasha sipped her wine and watched the scene play out in front of her. She hoped Zolf was okay- that he’d gotten out of Prague safely and hadn’t been eaten by zombies, that he was on his way to finding the answers he was looking for.

She wondered if Zolf would have stayed if Bertie had died earlier- or if he’d come back if he knew Bertie was gone now.

_Probably not,_ she thought, looking at the two paladins rapidly getting more and more passionate. Religion and morality had never really meant anything to her, but if it mattered to Zolf even a fraction as much as it mattered to Grizzop and Azu, she doesn’t blame him for being so upset.

She hoped he was happier now- calmer. With or without his god.

_Three- Sasha._

Sasha wiped a tear from her eye quickly, turning her body so the others couldn’t see. She was alive again- really, truly alive. She’d almost gotten used to being undead. She’d become accustomed to the daily pain and blood and fatigue. But she was _alive_ again.

She’d hugged Eren Fairhands almost without thinking, she was so grateful to him. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been this grateful in her life- except, well. Another healer had saved her too. Fairhands had saved her life, but there was another cleric who had done that and more. He’d given her a family.

She was getting used to Zolf not being there, but she still missed him like crazy. Her new friends, her new family, were incredible, and Sasha, despite herself, loved them. She’d do anything for Hamid without question, and she’d bonded so quickly with Grizzop. She’d only known Azu for a few days, but there was something about the paladin that was easy to like.

But Zolf was a part of that family too, and him being gone felt like another daily burden- another scar torn open, another night without rest. She could push past it, like everything else, but she didn’t want to.

Hamid felt it too, she knew. She saw him sneak out to mail a letter to Zolf. She’d thought about maybe doing the same, but neither she nor Zolf were good with words, and that had never been how they communicated.

But still, she wished she could thank him- for giving her her family, for being there for her as long as he had been.

Maybe one day she’d get the chance.

_Four- Zolf._

Zolf couldn’t believe they were gone. They’d gone to Rome and just _vanished_.

His stomach churned to think about it, but he knew they were dead.

_I should have been with them,_ he thought. It wasn’t anything new. Ever since he’d found out about Hamid and Sasha disappearing along with their new friends, he’d been wishing he had been with them, hoping that he could change things.

But no. Zolf had abandoned them when they needed him, and he had to live with the consequences. It was better than they would get, after all.

But, gods, they deserved better. Hamid had been hopeful and kind, and he had supported Zolf even when he had no idea how to.

And Sasha, who had never had anyone, never trusted anyone, had trusted him, and he’d let her down.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire- from Barrett’s tyranny to Zolf’s inadequacy.

Zolf had left because he had to, because he was losing control of himself and it was endangering people, but he wish he could have stayed, for Sasha, if not for anything else. She deserved to know someone would stay, that there was someone she could trust.

He hoped, maybe, she believed that about Hamid, at least, in the end. He wasn’t sure it mattered. They were both gone, and he was left with an ever-growing ache in his chest that he wasn’t sure would ever go away.

_Five- Zolf. _

Howard Carter was a skilled thief, but Zolf had seen better. Wilde was right, Carter could get the job done, and in the world they lived it, Zolf supposed that was all that mattered, but he didn’t have the finesse that Sasha had. What Sasha had done quickly and effortlessly, Carter took ages, and he messed up.

It made Zolf miss Sasha more than he ever had. The ache that had been growing in his chest since he’d learned about her disappearance- her death- became a sharp pain every time he watched Carter pick a lock.

But the world had gone to hell, and Zolf didn’t have time to spend grieving his friend. Just because he wanted Sasha there- as a thief, as his family- didn’t mean she could be.

So Zolf kept going- he pushed past the grief and moved forward. He had a world to save, after all, and that meant he needed Carter. The infection was going to keep spreading no matter how he felt about it, so he squared his shoulders and ignored it as much as he could.

If Zolf spent every moment he was alone thinking about his missing friends, well- no one else needed to know.

_\+ One- Zolf and Sasha._

It was 18 months before Wilde called him into his office. 18 long, hard months of fighting the infection, and grieving his friends in the few moments he had to do so. 18 months of missing them like crazy, and wishing they were with him.

And then, suddenly, they were. Or, well, they were close. For the first time in a year and a half, they were somewhere Zolf could find them.

He wasn’t, of course, allowed to go find them on his own. Wilde was right about this, however much Zolf hated to admit it. As much as Zolf wanted to run to Sasha and Hamid, to hug them and cry with them, and thank the god he no longer believes in that they’re safe, he couldn’t Because the world wasn’t trustworthy anymore, and the creatures that bare your friends’ faces weren’t always friendly.

So he waited. For Sasha and Hamid to arrive with their friends, a tall orc in pink armor and a short goblin with the symbol of Artemis on his chest. He waited for them to drink the poison Wilde had slipped into their drinks- which, really, he thought Hamid would fall for it, but he expected Sasha to know better. He waited for them to wake up in a cell while he was perched on a chair in the dark, watching.

The orc woman woke up first, and tried to break the bars. The goblin- a paladin, evidently- woke up next and tried to chew through them. They were both unsuccessful. When Zolf spoke up, warning them that the bars were indestructible, they were angry and bitter. He couldn’t blame them. No one was ever happy to be poisoned, or to wake up in a cell.

Then Sasha woke up, and he was so relieved to hear her voice, but he fought it. He couldn’t let himself hope, not yet. There were still seven days until he could breathe.

The first thing Sasha did was check on the other two and Hamid, then scope out the cell. Zolf felt a swell of pride. When he’d first met her, she would have done it in the opposite order- if she’d even bothered to check on the others at all. She’d grown, and he couldn’t fight back a smile seeing it. He’d missed her _so much._

When the goblin- Grizzop, Zolf learned- pointed him out to her, Sasha turned towards him, her human eyes searching the darkness until they landed on his figure.

“Who’s there?” she demanded. Zolf obligingly turned on a light.

“Hello, Sasha,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.”

She blinked and her jaw dropped open, more reaction than he was expecting from her, but some of the anger in her voice had quieted when she said, “Hey, boss. What’s going on?”

Zolf filled her in- as much as he could- and to her credit, she seemed disgruntled, but not furious. He was so glad she wasn’t furious. He’d spent so much time missing her that seeing her angry at him- well, he’s not sure how he would’ve handled it.

Hamid is the last to wake up, which isn’t surprising. Hamid is angry and demanding- and when Sasha informed him it was Zolf in the shadows, his anger turned to incredulity and hysteria. This, he was prepared for.

After testing them- Hamid and Sasha passed, to varying degrees, but he couldn’t get enough of a read on their companions to tell- he left them on their own for a bit and sent up a prayer without even thinking, begging for someone to let them be real. _Please, gods, just once, let this be okay. _

It took a week filled with awkward check-ups and even more awkward conversations- save for the shared gushing over Campbell novels with Azu (he was beginning to like her, if he was honest)- but finally they had reached the end of the quarantine period and Zolf unlocked the cell, finally letting the hope and relief and joy that he’d been fighting to keep at bay overwhelm him as he threw his arms around Hamid.

It hurt when Hamid hesitated, but Zolf understood.

When they parted, Zolf stepped towards Sasha, holding his arms out before he paused and let them fall. Right. He’d missed her dearly, and she had grown, but that didn’t mean she was any more of a hugger now than she had ever been.

But she surprised him by stepping forward and folding over to wrap her arms around him, clutching him tightly. He didn’t waste a second returning her hug.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she mumbled.

He laughed in relief, and it came out broken through the tears that had gathered in his throat. “I missed you too,” he said into her shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

They separated and he smiled. Their family was back in one place. (Minus Bertie, but really, they were better off for it).

They were still facing an apocalypse and he had no idea what was going to happen the next day, but for this moment, for the first time in longer than he could even remember, he felt happy.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to zephyr for reading this and also to ben and lydia for creating literally the best characters and the best character dynamic of all time
> 
> (we were robbed of their friendship and a reunion and i'll be bitter forever)


End file.
